South Carolina's Leon Everette came onto the country scene as one of the most promising artists of the late 1970s and early '80s... But despite a string of modest hits, he couldn't keep his major label mojo going forever. Still, he left behind some great recordings for his fans, although his albums have vanished from sight -- here's a quick look at his work...
Leon Everette "The Best Of Leon Everette" (RCA, 1984) (LP)
Leon Everette "Greatest Hits" (RCA, 1987) (LP)
Leon Everette "Goodbye King Of Rock 'N' Roll" (True, 1977) (LP)
Leon Everette "I Don't Want To Lose" (Orlando Records, 1980) (LP)
(Produced by Jerry Foster, Bill Rice, Ronnie Dean & Leon Everette)
Although he did eventually break into the Top Forty scene, South Carolina's Leon Everette had real indie roots, as heard on this outsider-label, non-Nashville album, which yielded a few back forty singles, enough to get him onto the major-label radar. The sessions were produced under the patronage of the songwriter-producer team of Foster & Rice, whose composition, "Over," hit #10 on the charts, providing Everette with his entry into early '80s Nashville. All the songs on Side One were written or co-written by Roger Murrah, and they mostly seem like see-what-sticks, hoping-for-a-hit material -- slick but slightly jittery, uptempo country stuff with a generic '70s sound. Side Two provides more variety and perhaps a better picture of the possible directions Everette could have taken: the first song is more of the same, though "Over" changes the tone with a slower, more contemplative ballad, nudging Everette into the sound he would excel in on his RCA recordings. Perhaps even more telling was his version of Mark Knopfler's "Setting Me Up," which had been most recently recorded on Albert Lee's album Hiding, and Everette follows that template pretty closely. Indeed, he sounds quite a bit like Lee's country-rocker buddy Rodney Crowell on the next couple of tracks (including a poppy version of Hank Williams's "I Saw The Light") and though it was even better when Everette found his own voice and style on his RCA albums, this early allegiance to the Crowell sound is kinda cool. Definitely worth checking out.
Leon Everette "If I Keep On Going Crazy" (RCA, 1981) (LP)
Leon Everette "Hurricane" (RCA, 1981) (LP)
Leon Everette "Maverick" (RCA, 1982) (LP)
Leon Everette "Leon Everette" (RCA, 1983) (LP)
Leon Everette "Doin' What I Feel" (RCA, 1984) (LP)
(Produced by Ronnie Dean & Leon Everette)
His last record for RCA wound up being a 6-song EP -- released twice the same year, with three different tracks on Side Two. This slapdash exit seems like a pretty ignominious parting of the ways for such a promising artist, especially since the material was pretty strong. Things kick off with "The Lady, She's Right," a robust, Merle Haggard-flavored track that featured harmony vocals by Vern Gosdin's brother, Rex, who apparently passed away before the EP was released. It was a modest hit, almost grazing the Top 30, and a Top Ten hit followed with, "I Coulda Had You," (off the second version of the EP...) But despite the strength of these two singles, the label still dropped him, and that was that. Regardless, there's some nice stuff on here. Everette returns to his Elvis years with the hearty bombast of "In A Letter Of Goodbye" (EP 1.0) where he soars above the string section in a way that would have made The King proud... Similarly the last track, "This Man And Woman Thing," has a Conway Twitty-esque croonerbilly feel that more than makes up for the thudding, inert uptempo pop-country of "No Man's Land" and its desperate-for-a-hit synth-country twin on Side One. The 2.0 disc was even better, but jeez, couldn't they have just waited a couple of months and put it all out at once? Oh, well.
Leon Everette "Where's The Fire" (Mercury, 1985) (LP)
